Rickshaw Boy: A Novel

by She Lao

  “Don’t just squat there, say something! Stand up!” The cold seemed to affect her as well. She needed to move around.

  Stiffly he got to his feet and walked with her, heading north, still unable to come up with anything to say. He was numb from head to toe, like a man emerging from a deep freeze.

  “Don’t you have any ideas?” She gazed at him, tenderness in her eyes.

  There was nothing he could say. “The old man’s birthday is the twenty-seventh. He’ll expect you to be there.”

  “Too busy, end of the year.” Even in his confusion, Xiangzi hadn’t forgotten his own affairs.

  “You’re the type that has to be forced to do something. Trying to talk to you is a waste of time.” Her voice was rising again, the cold air giving it a crisper edge, and causing Xiangzi considerable embarrassment. “Well, I’m fearless. So what do you plan to do? If you won’t listen to me, I won’t waste my breath. Come up with something, or I’ll stand outside your room and curse you for three straight days and nights! And I’ll find you no matter where you go! I don’t care who I’m dealing with.”

  “Stop shouting, won’t you?” Xiangzi moved away from her.

  “Shouting bothers you, does it? Well, you should have thought about that at the time. You had your fun, and now you want to dump everything on me. Well, pull back your you-know-what and see who you think you’re talking to!”

  “Go ahead, tell me, I’m listening.” Her outburst made Xiangzi, who had been suffering from the cold, suddenly feel hot all over, the heat prickling his skin as it oozed from his frozen pores. His scalp itched terribly.

  “That’s better. Don’t make things hard on yourself.” Her lips parted, revealing her canines.

  “You don’t have to feel bad,” she said. “I really care for you. You need to keep in mind what’s good for you. I tell you, getting pigheaded with me won’t do you any good.”

  “Don’t…” Xiangzi wanted to say, “Don’t slap me, then try to rub the hurt away,” but he couldn’t recall the whole saying. He knew his share of Beiping wisecracks, but the words often got stuck in his throat. He understood them all right; he just wasn’t good at using them.

  “Don’t what?”

  “You first.”

  “I’ve got an idea.” She stopped and looked him in the eye.

  “You see, if you send a matchmaker to talk to the old man, he’ll say no. He rents out rickshaws, you pull them, and that wouldn’t be a good match for his daughter. But that doesn’t bother me. I like you, and that’s what counts. To hell with all the rest! No matchmaker will get past the old man, because any mention of the word marriage will get him thinking about his rickshaws. Even someone above you would be out of luck. So it’s up to me, since I chose you. We boarded the train before we bought a ticket. Neither of us can deny what’s inside me, but we can’t march into the old man’s yard and tell him. He’s getting more pigheaded all the time, and he might react to our announcement by taking a young wife and driving me out. The old fellow’s in great shape for a man in his seventies, and if has a new wife, he could easily father two or three children, believe it or not.”

  “Let’s talk while we walk,” Xiangzi said, concerned that the policeman on duty had walked by them twice.

  “Nobody can keep us from talking right where we are.” She followed Xiangzi’s gaze toward the policeman. “You’re not pulling a rickshaw, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. He can’t bite someone’s balls off just because he feels like it. Not on your life! He can mind his own business. Now here’s what I think. On the twenty-seventh, his birthday, you kowtow to him, then do the same on New Year’s, and that’ll put him in a good mood. When he’s happy, he likes to drink, so I’ll have some liquor ready, and once he’s good and drunk, you strike while the iron’s hot, asking him to be your foster father. After that, I’ll gradually let him know that I’m indisposed. He’ll ask what’s wrong, and I’ll remind him of Xu Zhe, who was brought as a prisoner to Cao Cao’s camp, and not say another word. He’ll really start to worry then, so I’ll drop the name Qiao Er—the assistant manager of the undertaker shop east of town—who died recently with no heirs or family and was buried in the potter’s field outside Dongzhi Gate. How’s the old man going to find out if that’s true? This’ll put him in a bind, and we can drop a hint that giving me to you would be a good idea. What’s the difference between a foster son and a son-in-law? I’ll say. That way we’ll get what we want without causing a scandal. What do you think?”

  Xiangzi said nothing.

  Having said her piece, Huniu walked off to the north, head down and looking pleased with herself, as she gave Xiangzi time to think over what she’d said. The wind rose up about them and blew the clouds away from the moon. They’d reached the northern end of the street, where the waters of the Imperial Moat had frozen solid—skirting the red walls of the Forbidden City, silent, gray, flat, and hard. No sounds emerged from inside the wall. The exquisite watch towers, the gold and green memorial archways, the vermillion city gates, and the pavilion at Jingshan Park were silent, as if listening to a sound they might never hear again. The wind blew, like a mournful sigh, snaking through the palace towers and halls, as if wanting to relate tales of days past. Huniu headed west, followed by Xiangzi, to the arched bridge to Beihai. The bridge was practically deserted. Dull moonlight shone down, cold and desolate, on expanses of ice on both sides. Dim outlines of distant pavilions cast dark shadows, as silent as if immobilized in a frozen lake, with only their yellow roof tiles glimmering faintly. Trees rustled slightly, further blurring the moonlight. A white pagoda reaching into the hazy clouds cast a desolate chill on everything, causing the three lakes to reveal the northern bleakness, despite their intricate carvings. As he was crossing the bridge, Xiangzi shivered from the icy expanse below and refused to go any farther. Normally, when he was pulling his rickshaw across the bridge, he concentrated on his feet, afraid of a misstep, as if the sights around him did not exist. Now he was free to look, but the scenery frightened him. The cold, gray ice, the rustling trees, and the deathly pale pagoda were so forlorn they seemed poised to shout hysterically or dance madly. Even the white stones of the bridge at his feet seemed abnormally bleak and so white that even the street lamps were subdued and dreary. He did not want to move, he did not want to look, and he definitely did not want to be with her. Why not just jump headfirst, crash through the ice, and sink to the bottom to freeze in the water like a dead fish!

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned and headed back the way he’d come.

  “That’s how we’ll do it, Xiangzi,” she said to his broad back.

  “The twenty-seventh!” With one last look at the white pagoda, she sighed and walked off to the west.

  Like a man with a demon at his heels, Xiangzi did not look back. Rushing headlong toward the palace area, he was so flustered he nearly crashed into the palace wall. Leaning against it with his hand, he felt like crying. His senses were dulled. “Xiangzi!” came a shout from the bridge. “Come here, Xiangzi, come back here!” It was Huniu.

  He took two tortured steps toward the bridge as Huniu, leaning back slightly, walked down to meet him. Her mouth was open. “Come here, Xiangzi, I’ve got something for you.” She was right in front of him before he’d taken more than a few steps. “Take this, it’s the thirty-odd yuan we were holding for you. There was some small change, and I added a bit to make an additional yuan. Take it. I’m only giving it to you to show my heart’s in the right place. I miss you, I care for you, and I want to look after you. All I ask is a little gratitude. Take it and hold on to it. If you lose it, don’t blame me.”

  Xiangzi took the money—a wad of bills—and stood there at a loss. He didn’t know what to say.

  “All right, then, I’ll see you on the twenty-seventh. No backing out.” She laughed. “You’re getting the best of everything. Figure it out for yourself.” She turned and walked off.

  Clutching the bills, Xiangzi followed her with his eyes until her head
disappeared on the downward slope of the bridge. Gray clouds slipped in front of the moon again, making the street lamps brighter and turning the bridge extraordinarily white, empty, and cold. He turned and walked off like a maniac, taking long strides. The image of the dreary white bridge was still with him when he reached the gate, as if only a blink in time separated it from him.

  The first thing he did back in his room was count the money, once, twice, three times, until his sweaty palms made the bills sticky and hard to count. When he finally finished, he stuffed them into his gourd bank, then sat on his bed and stared blankly at the earthenware container. There was nothing to think about. With money, anything was possible. He was confident that the contents of the bank would solve all his problems, so there was no need to think. The Imperial Moat, Jingshan Park, the white pagoda, the bridge, Huniu, her belly…all dreams, and when he woke up, there would be thirty yuan more in his bank, and that was real!

  Once he’d gazed at the bank long enough he put it away and decided to get a good night’s sleep. He’d sleep away the day’s troubles and see what tomorrow brought.

  He lay down but couldn’t sleep, as all that had happened buzzed into his head, like wasps, one swarm after another, all armed with stingers.

  He tried to wipe his mind clean because thinking was a waste of time now that Huniu had closed off all avenues of escape.

  Best for him to storm off, but he couldn’t do that. He’d rather stand guard over the white pagoda at Beihai than go back to the countryside. What about another city? He couldn’t think of anyplace that would be better than Beiping. No, he couldn’t leave. This was where he’d end his days.

  Once that was decided, why waste time thinking about anything else? Huniu would do what she said, and if he didn’t go along with her, she’d badger him mercilessly. There was no place in Beiping where he could hide from her. He’d be crazy to try to give her the slip because that would only anger her and she’d bring Fourth Master Liu into the picture. He’d hire a couple of toughs—no more than that—and they’d take him to a remote spot and kill him.

  In his mind he went over the encounter with Huniu, from start to finish, and felt as if he’d fallen into a trap, bound hand and foot. There was no escape. He couldn’t fault anything she said, for there were no flaws in her logic. She had cast a fine mesh net from which even the smallest fish could not escape. Since he had no luck analyzing the situation in its details, he decided to look at it in its entirety, and when he did, it pressed down on his head like a millstone. This oppressive weight brought home the reality that a rickshaw man’s lot in life can be summed up in two words: hard luck. A rickshaw man, since that is what he was, must stay clear of everything but his rickshaw, especially women, since getting close to one can only end in disaster. Fourth Master Liu and Huniu had both cheated Xiangzi, he with all his rickshaws and she with her smelly cunt. It would do him no good to try to think things through. To accept his fate, he’d have to kowtow to the old man and ask him to be his foster father, and then wait to marry that stinking bitch. Not to do so was suicidal.

  When his thoughts reached this point, Xiangzi put Huniu and everything she’d said out of his mind. He couldn’t blame her for what happened; it was just a rickshaw man’s lot in life, no different from a dog that expects to be beaten and bullied, even by children, for no good reason. Why cling to a life like that? Give it up and be done with it!

  Unable to sleep, he kicked away his comforter and sat up. He felt like getting good and drunk. Why the fuck should he care about this business or about proper behavior! Get drunk and pass out. The twenty-seventh? Not even on the twenty-eighth, and who was going to do anything about it? Throwing the comforter over his shoulders, he picked up the little bowl he used as a glass and ran out.

  The wind had picked up a bit, but the gray clouds had drifted away from the moon, which seemed smaller, its beams chilled. Xiangzi, who had just emerged from a warm bed, shuddered from the blast of cold air. The streets were deserted except for a couple of rickshaws, the pullers stomping their feet and covering their ears with their hands. Xiangzi ran straight to a little teahouse on the south side. The door was shut to keep the heat in, with only a tiny window open to make exchanges. He bought four ounces of strong liquor and a packet of peanuts, then carried his bowl of liquor like a sedan-chair bearer, keeping a fast pace without running, not spilling a drop by the time he was back in his room. He scurried back into his bed, teeth chattering. Too cold to sit up. The pungent aroma of the liquor on his bedside table was not pleasant; not even the peanuts interested him. The freezing air hit him like a cold shower, and he didn’t feel like sticking his hand out, now that his heart had given up its heat.

  Xiangzi lay there for a long time before gazing at the liquor beside his bed. No, he mustn’t go down that destructive road over this entanglement; he had to stay away from liquor. Things looked bad, no doubt about that, but there had to be an opening somewhere that he could slip through. And even if no escape was possible, he couldn’t let himself wallow in the mud. He had to open his eyes wide and see as clearly as possible how people had managed to beat him down.

  He put out the light and pulled the comforter up over his head, hoping that would help him sleep. It didn’t. Poking his head out, he saw that the moon’s rays had taken on a green cast as they filtered through the paper window facing the courtyard, a sign that daybreak was not far off. The tip of his nose was chilled in cold night air that carried the aroma of liquor. He sat up abruptly, picked up the bowl, and took a big drink.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Xiangzi was not smart enough to deal with his problems little by little and lacked the boldness to attack them all at once. And so, stymied, he spent his time stewing in his resentments. Like all living creatures, he was thinking only of picking up the pieces after suffering a setback. A fighting cricket that has lost its rear legs tries to crawl on its smaller forelegs. Xiangzi didn’t know what else to do but make it through one day at a time, taking things as they came, crawling to wherever his hands and feet would take him, with no thought of leaping ahead.

  The twenty-seventh was a couple of weeks off, and that was the only thing on his mind, on his lips, and in his dreams; all day long—the twenty-seventh. Once that day passed, it seemed, his problems would be solved, though he knew that this was wishful thinking. He sometimes tried to think ahead, maybe using some of his savings to go to Tianjin and find a new way to make a living. Could Huniu find him there? In his mind, any place he could reach only by train was too far off for her to track him down! These were comforting thoughts, but deep down he knew it wouldn’t work—as long as he could stay in Beiping, he would. And so his thoughts returned to the twenty-seventh, since it was easier to think about things that were close. If he could pass this hurdle, he might be able to put his troubles behind him without having to do anything drastic, and even if this did not solve all his problems, each hurdle brought him that much closer.

  So how to get over this hurdle? Two ideas occurred to him: one was to ignore her and refuse to pay respects to her father. The other was to do exactly as she said. Two separate approaches that produced essentially the same result. If he didn’t go, she would not let that be the end of it; if he did go, she’d show him no leniency. He recalled his early days with a rickshaw, and how he’d followed the lead of other pullers by taking shortcuts down small lanes and alleys. But he once mistakenly headed to Luoquan, or “Circular” Lane, which, true to its name, brought him back to where he started. Well, he’d done it again, since no matter which way he went, the result would be the same.

  Trying to make the best of a bad situation, he asked himself what was wrong with marrying Huniu. And no matter how he looked at it, the prospect sickened him. He shook his head just thinking about how she looked. Forget her appearance and consider her behavior. No self-respecting, hardworking man could hold his head up if he married damaged goods like her and could not face his deceased parents when his time came. And what guarantee did he have
that the child in her belly was his? Or that she’d bring the rickshaws along with her? He certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Fourth Master Liu. And even if everything went off without a hitch, knowing he’d never get the better of Huniu was more than he could bear. All she had to do was curl her finger to have him running around till his head spun and he did not know in which direction he was headed. He knew what he was up against with her. She was not someone he wanted to start a family with, and that was that. Marrying her would be the end of him, as he was not a man who held himself in contempt. So he was stuck, no way around it.

  Since dealing with her was out of the question, he turned his loathing inward, feeling a need to punish himself. But the truth was, he’d done nothing wrong. It had all been her doing, luring him into her trap. His innocence and decency had been his downfall; people like him always got the worst of it, and trying to sort things out reasonably would be a waste of time.

  What really bothered him was that there was no one to whom he could pour his heart out. He had no parents or siblings, and no friends. Most of the time he saw himself as a hardy young man, feet on the ground and holding up the sky, independent and carefree. But now he realized, to his chagrin, that a man cannot live alone, and he began to develop a sense of affection for others, especially his brothers in the trade. If he’d made friends with just a few of them—men like him—he wouldn’t have to fear several Hunius, let alone one. His friends would give him advice and take his side. But he’d always kept to himself, and making friends on the spur of the moment was unlikely. He felt a fear he’d never known before. The way things were going, anyone could bully and humiliate him. A man alone cannot hold up the sky!

  This fear caused him to start doubting himself. In the winter, when his employer had a dinner engagement or went to the theater, he would take the water bottle out from under the carbide lamp and hold it up against his chest; the water would freeze if left on the rickshaw. He’d sweat after a good run, and the water bottle against his chest would make him shiver until it warmed up. But he’d never felt exploited by doing this, and sometimes it had given him a sense of superiority, since the men who pulled beat-up rickshaws did not have carbide lamps to begin with. But now he saw things differently. He earned a pittance each month and had to put up with all sorts of degradations, even holding a water bottle against his chest to make sure it didn’t freeze. His chest—broad and powerful—was less valuable than a little water bottle! He’d once thought that pulling a rickshaw was the ideal profession, for it would make it possible for him to start a family and earn a decent living. Now he wasn’t so sure. How could he blame Huniu for humiliating him, since all along he was worth no more than a water bottle?